Two of the more popular New Year resolutions are being more organized and having more time. We manage a lot of information in our lives and use many devices to help us. Although computers are supposed to make life easier, it can also complicate things; and thereby, increasing the time you spend on them (not to mention increasing frustrations). An example is the way people transfer files between their work and home computers – either by saving the file on a flash drive or by emailing the info to themselves. Another problem people experience is ‘syncing’ their work and personal schedules across devices. Most people end up reentering the information. What a huge waste of time. The problem seems to be worse if you use different computer systems (MAC vs PC vs Linux).

Just to give you an idea, I use a Mac at home, a PC at work, a Netbook (running Windows XP and just Open Source programs) and an iPod touch (soon an iPhone). All my information are the same on each device and I just need to input new info once. It’s organized and I don’t waste any time entering the same info four times.

Here are some suggestions to help you make your ‘computing’ life more seamless.

1. Take it to the ‘Cloud’. The ‘Cloud’ is basically the Internet. This is the vehicle that will be instrumental in synchronizing information between your computing devices. As long as your devices can access the Internet, you are in business. Imagine the Cloud as your personal server, when you send information up there using one device, it will show up across all your devices. If you change the information, then all your devices will be updated. Pretty cool.

2. Programs and services to help you. Now that you’ve decided ‘Cloud Computing’ is the way to go, you need to have the appropriate programs and services to help you. If you use your computer ‘off line’ (not connected to the Internet), it is important to use programs that can sync with a counterpart on the Cloud.

Google: Google offers so much more than just a web browser. I can’t say enough about how awesome Google is. To date, I use pretty much everything they offer in Canada. The great thing about Google is that it can be used as a standalone product or act as a ‘hub’ for synchronizing info. Specific Google products to help you are: Gmail, GCal (calendar) and Google Gears (to let you use Gmail and GCal off line if you want). If you want to use your own programs, Gmail and GCal can sync to the native programs most people use; such as: Apple Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird (for email management); and, iCAL, Outlook, Sunbird (for calendar management).
A couple of things to note. If you are a Mac user, you may benefit from a third party syncing software like BusySync. For seamless email syncing, make sure your email is on an IMAP as opposed to a POP server.

Because this is not a tech blog, I won’t go into details on how to set this up. If you access Google help, all the information is there. It’s pretty simple.

Mozilla: Most people are familiar with Firefox, but Mozilla offers two pretty cool alternatives for email (Thunderbird) and calendar (Sunbird). I use these on my Netbook for two reasons – it’s powerful and it’s free. For syncing your browser bookmarks, try Xmark – a plug-in for Firefox.

Dropbox: This is a great service for managing your files. It is essentially an on line hard drive. Dropbox offers 2GB of storage for free (you can purchase more) and if you recommend people to their service, you can get up to 3GB. No more using a flash drive! There are a lot of alternatives (paid and unpaid) to Dropbox, but I find Dropbox better for people who use Mac and PCs.

Open Source Programs: In short, Open Source is a philosophy/initiative/concept that people should have free access to computing software. As a result, programmers collaborate and develop great programs for people to use. In fact, some of these programs are better than the ones for sale. You can find alternatives for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, photo management, finances and more. The great thing about Open Source programs is that most of them can be used by all operating systems. And it’s FREE. With such great products out there, it still surprises me why organizations and individuals pay huge fees for licenses and basic software.

As our World is becoming more technologically advanced and dependent, I feel it is important to keep up (as best we can) with the changes. Hopefully, this is a small step to help you manage your computing needs better. If you have any suggestions or tools you’ve used, please feel free to share.

cloud computing · More organized · Time saving

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